WP Queen

Your Blog’s 2010 Checklist

posted in Rants, Raves & Random Stuff

Well it’s that time of the year when I review  what I have done in the past year and what I want to do in the next year and beyond.    This is a great time of year to get your house in order, create a business plan, clear up your desktop, clean up your computer and develop strategies that will take you to where you want to go in 2010 and in the future.

I’ll be doing all of the above things this Christmas break as well as giving the house a much needed spring clean.  I always find that I think more clearly and remain more focused when I have a clean desk, a cleaned up computer and a clean uncluttered house.

You can do a  lot of things on a broad brush approach like I mention above  but you can also do small things in particular with your WordPress blog to get ready for 2010.

Here’s some ideas

Strategy – do you actually have a strategy with your blog?  Did you start blogging but without direction on where you want to go and what you want to achieve?   I know I did!   If that’s you as well then now might be the time to sit down and think about what you want your blog to achieve and how you will go about doing this.

For instance, with my blog here I want to increase the number of  unique and returning visitors.    I’ve looked at my stats and set myself a goal of how many new visitors I want to obtain by the end of 2010.  The way to increase visitors returning to your blog is by providing quality content that they are interested in.   In order for me to do this I need to spend more time asking visitors what they want and checking my stats to see what they are searching for.   Once I’ve identified that I can go about creating the content.

Content – are you delivering content consistently by way of posts?  If so, now might be the time to broaden your horizons and venture into other mediums like podcasts or video.   Add this to your to do list for the future.

Idea Central – often when you go to write a post you will see  a brick wall.   Nothing.   For times like these it’s a good idea to have an ideas book.   I actually have a to do list in my WordPress dashboard where I write things down that I want to blog about.   You don’t have to have a to do list a book is just as good.    In your ideas book you can write down ideas for posts, video content, podcasts, interviews with people in your niche and products that you want to review for your visitors.

Consistent – as I said recently,  you need to be consistent with your content to not only train the search engines to visit you but also your visitors to return.   Work out a schedule of how many times per week you are going to post in 2010 and stick with it.

Renovate – if you have had the same WordPress theme since the get go then it may be time for a facelift.   Have a look around for WordPress themes that may suit the direction that you want to take your blog in.

Update – if you have been lax in the dashboard now is the time for a clean up.  Update your blog to the latest release and make sure all your plugins are up to date and working properly.

Improve – often we keep with the same set up even though times have changed (just looking at the hairstyles on Facebook from my old school convinces me of that!).    Be brave.    It may be time to make some improvements to your blog.   Here’s some ideas:   are your categories relevant and, more importantly, do you use them?  If not, change them.    Have you got an About page as a useful place for seo love and a way for visitors to get to know you?  If not, make one (yes I’ll be making one as well!).    Do you have a photo of you on your blog and as your avatar?  If not, start clicking that camera.   I was amazed at how much more people interacted with me on forums when I started using an avatar.

Plugins – there are so many plugins in the world I don’t think that I will ever get to try them all!  I’m giving it my best shot though!   Have a look at your plugins and see if they could do with improvement.   For example, there has been so many twitter plugins released lately are  you using the best one for your blog?

Interact – you will have more returning visitors if your visitors know you, like you, trust you.   One way of achieving this is through interaction.    Ask people to post a comment, provide feedback, or tweet your post if they find it interesting.   This encourages interaction and discussion (and hopefully visitors) in the wider community.   A great way to really get the conversation started is to start a contest.   Think of something related to your niche and a prize that would compliment it and start up your content.   This is also a great way to build a list.     You’ll find a ton of contents on the internet and ones that generate the most action are usually where the visitor either has to make viral posts about your content or where they need to have the best answer to win a prize.  Think of something fun and make sure that you list your contest with the online contest sites to attract a wider audience.

Speed – the Christmas break might be a good time to test the speed of your blog as well.  If it is slow it may be time to install some cache plugins, upload large graphics to Amazon S3 or move your blog to another server.

Monetize – as internet marketers we should be interested in how we are going to monetize our blogs.   Generally, with your blog you  will monetize it with selling advertising space, your own products or affiliate products.    You can generate a long standing relationship with your subscribers by building a list and providing specific content for rss subscribers.   All of these tactics can help generate income from your blog.

There’s some ideas to get you started on a blog update for 2010 and, yes, there are so many that I haven’t done that I will be doing as well.  Be sure and check back and see what I actually do for 2010 with my own blog

enjoy

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